TONIGHT IS OUR SWAP WITH CO-HOST BURLINGTON GREEN SO THIS IS A PERFECT CHANCE TO SPREAD THE WORD ABOUT THE AMAZING OPPORTUNITY THEY ARE IN THE RUNNING FOR!

Our September Swap partner, Burlington Green is in the running for an amazing opportunity! They are a finalist in the Jamieson Vitamins Call For the Wild contest! And they need our votes!

Why? Because they will win a whackload of moolah (up to $100 000) that will help them continue their green work around the City of Burlington. Imagine how far that could go into making a difference in our community.

They are the only organization representing Ontario. Their fellow competitors include: The Vancouver Aquarium, the Calgary Wildlife Rehabilitation Society, the Hope for Wildlife Society in New Brunswick and Montreal’s McGill Bird Observatory. That’s a pretty impressive group!

And while you’re clicking around on the internet, make sure you sign up for September’s Food Swap on September 10th! You need a ticket to participate, so make sure you click your way over to the Eventbrite sign up page!

So now that you’ve decided what you’re bringing to the swap, you need to decide how you’re going to bring it to the swap. This is where you can have a lot of fun.

There are two main things you need to think about when packaging for your swap:

The main thing we ask is that your swap items come packaged ready to swap and ready to go home with the other swappers. This means that baked goods should be wrapped or bagged, anything liquid in jars or in other sealed containers or even just bound together (herbs, vegetables, etc). Muffins and things like that do well in the brown paper lunch bags, parchment and wax paper are also good wrappings for baked goods.

The other thing to think about is attaching your name, basic ingredients and/or instructions to the swap items. If you bring a pie that needs to be baked, give the temperature and time needed. If an item can only be kept for a few days after the swap, list that too.

Once you’ve got these two things under control, get creative! Use pretty ribbon, colourful tags, stickers or paper. Think about how stores and brands use colour and style to sell their products. You can do the same for what you bring. Between offering samples and funky packaging, you could be the belle of the ball and “sell out” of all your swap goodies!

But that said, you can be as creative as you want. The most important thing is that everything comes packaged and ready to go! Other than that… it’s all icing on the cake!

We’ve had a few questions about what’s appropriate to bring to the Food Swap, so today’s post is to give you ideas or to assure people about their swap choices.

The idea behind a food swap is to celebrate the local food scene, so you can bring anything you want… as long as it’s something you (or your family) have grown, baked or made. Essentially, as long as it’s not commercially made (ie: you stopped at the grocery store on the way), you’re good.

Still not sure? Some of the things we’ve seen at previous swaps include:

Hummus

Borscht and other Soups

Pound Cake

Banana Bread

Tomato Sauce

Gluten Free Crackers

Freshly Made Almond Milk

Vegetable Chips

Apple Crumble

Bunches of Fresh Herbs

Fresh Rhubarb Stalks

Fresh Jerusalem Artichokes

Homemade Yoghurt

Homemade Granola

Preserves, Jams, Jellies and Pickles of all varieties

Rhubarb Cake

Pumpkin Muffins

Hand-knitted Wash Clothes

Margarita Mix

…and so much more!

It’s up to you. What’s your favourite food at the moment (are you totally into apple muffins right now)? What do you have a lot of in the garden (do you suffer from too-much-zucchini-itis)? Bring it to the swap.

We have a lot of people signed up for the swap, about 20 people. Don’t think you have to bring 20 of the same thing. If a batch of muffins is enough for 6 people, bring that. You are not obligated to bring something to swap with each person attending. You are there to have fun, so don’t feel the pressure to bring 20 things… bring what you like. And you can bring multiple things: 6 portions of muffins, 4 poundcakes, 3 jars of jam… and a partridge in a pear tree! Actually, don’t bring the partridge in a pear tree, as I don’t know how we’d get a tree in the building and I don’t think birds are allowed inside!

That list (minus the partridge) brings up a good point. How do you decide what your currency is? Well, that is up to you. Everything needs to come to the swap packaged or bundled and ready to swap. Do not bring a bunch of things, planning to say “take what you want”. Have an idea of what you think is a fair swap. Each item or package you bring is one piece of currency. At previous swaps, a lot of people used mason jars or similar containers for their items, particularly anything liquid. Baking is often one small cake, 4-6 muffins, a typical sized loaf, etc.

Are you excited? It’s almost time for our next swap on September 10th! And it’s going to be a big one! As of now, we have 20 people signed up to swap! We are very excited for our first swap in Burlington and our first swap with our co-hosts Burlington Green.

So what’s in store? Well, lots of locally made, baked, and grown goodies… and a chance to socialize with a bunch of like minded people.

Not only are we swapping all kinds of goodies, but we’re also going to do a little book swap. This part of the swap is easy. If you have some books on food, cooking, gardening or green living that you want to get rid of, bring them to the swap and put them in our book swap. And that’s it. Everyone can browse the books to see if there’s something that catches their eye… and if they do, they can take the book. Easy peasy. At the end of the night, remaining books can be taken back by the people who brought them. So go through your books and see if there’s anything you’d like to bring.

Haven’t signed up yet? There is still time to go over to the Eventbrite page and get your ticket. There are only a few left, so get them while you can!